Country Sales Director Spain & Portugal

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business Administration, Marketing, or a related discipline. Master’s degree or MBA preferred.
• Minimum 10 – 15 years of experience in technical sales, business development, key account management, or commercial leadership roles.
• Proven experience within the rail, rolling stock, transportation, mobility, or related industrial sectors.
• Demonstrated success managing complex sales cycles, strategic bids, tenders, and high-value customer relationships.
• Experience managing both Original Equipment (OE) and Services businesses is strongly preferred.
• Successful track record of delivering growth within an international and matrix-based organization.
• Previous people leadership experience with responsibility for coaching, developing, and leading teams.

Key Competencies

• Strategic thinker with the ability to build and execute long-term commercial plans.
• Strong business and financial acumen.
• Strong understanding of sales processes, pipeline management, forecasting, and margin optimization.
• Strong account management and customer relationship development capabilities.
• Excellent negotiation, influencing, and stakeholder management skills.
• Strong people leadership, coaching, and talent development capabilities.
• Ability to influence across a matrix organization without direct authority.
• Strong communication and presentation skills.
• Results-oriented, customer-focused, entrepreneurial and collaborative.

• Fluent Spanish (required).
• Fluent English (required).
• Portuguese (considered a plus).

Reporting to the Transit S&M VP, the Country Sales Director Spain & Portugal is responsible for driving profitable growth across Spain and Portugal for both Transit Services and Original Equipment (OE) businesses. The role leads the country commercial strategy, develops executive customer relationships, expands market share, and ensures the successful delivery of growth, profitability and customer satisfaction objectives.

The incumbent serves as the senior commercial leader for the region and represents Wabtec across customers, industry stakeholders and key market influencers. 

Drive Business Growth

• Define and execute the commercial strategy for Spain and Portugal across OE and Services activities.
• Deliver Order Intake, Margin and Growth objectives aligned with regional and business priorities.
• Drive sustainable growth through strategic account development, installed base expansion, market penetration and new business acquisition.
• Develop and maintain a robust pipeline of qualified opportunities.

Develop Strategic Customer & Market Relationships

• Build and maintain executive-level relationships with operators, rolling stock manufacturers, maintainers, infrastructure managers, consultants and key industry stakeholders.
• Position Wabtec as a trusted partner through customer engagement, lobbying and industry representation activities.
• Promote the full portfolio of OE and Services solutions while identifying emerging market opportunities and customer needs.
• Coordinate commercial activities with Product Line teams and global Key Account Managers.

Lead Strategic Opportunities & Commercial Execution

• Lead the identification, qualification and conversion of strategic opportunities across the region.
• Define winning commercial and negotiation strategies for major bids and tenders.
• Ensure disciplined opportunity management and effective collaboration across functions.
• Drive continuous improvement through Why Won / Why Lost reviews.

Build Organizational Capability

• Lead, coach and develop a high-performing sales organization.
• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, customer focus and commercial excellence.
• Develop talent and strengthen leadership capability within the country sales organization.

Lead Cross-Functional Business Execution

• Align activities across Product Lines, Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, Customer Service and Finance.
• Support customer issue resolution and alignment between commercial commitments and operational capabilities.
• Partner with Finance and operational teams to support cash collection and overdue reduction initiatives.

Drive Commercial Excellence

• Ensure CRM discipline, installed base visibility, customer segmentation and opportunity pipeline management.
• Lead sales forecasting activities and provide accurate monthly, quarterly and annual outlooks.
• Contribute to demand planning, S&OP and capacity planning processes.
• Maintain effective commercial governance, reporting and performance management practices.

Availability to travel in Spain and Portugal for up to 30% of time.

• Order Intake, Margin Performance, Revenue Growth and Installed Base Growth.
• Opportunity Pipeline Development and Tender Win Rate.
• Customer Satisfaction, Strategic Account Growth, Customer Retention and Market Share Development.
• Forecast Accuracy, CRM Data Quality, Overdue Reduction and Commercial Excellence KPIs